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Finally finished Gray matter and my verdict is that it's a decent point & click adventure with good enough story (although I didn't really liked the final conclusion) and puzzles that make sense within the game. Nothing more nothing less.
My main complaint about it is that there are too many cases where I got stuck and had to refer to a walk-through, just to realize I didn't examine a thing I already examined before, but now looking at it is crucial for the continuation of the story.

Next on my P&C games list - Desura and The cave (I don't know yet if I can call it Point & click yet).

Also playing Farcry 3 and I have to admit it 's an excellent game. Fun to play and fun to look at. But nothing we haven't seen in other games before (especially Just cause 2). Also, the open world is getting too much in the way of the linear story, but the rewards for most of the items collection are too important to skip.
In AssCreed 3 the open world tropes can easily be ignored and it makes the linear part of the game much much better.

Also mucking about in Sleeping Dogs. I'm not sure I'll get to the end of it at this rate, the combat system is becoming a tad boring. It's kept interesting by the great looking city (at least at night).

"He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to
the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free". ~ Luke 4:18

Lego: Lego Lord of the Rings. After The Walking Dead I needed something lighthearted and easy and you can't get much easier or lighthearted than the lego games. It was on sale recently this weekend so it seemed like faith.

Had a go at Smuggle Track (and wondering why bother porting this kind of game to PC) and Fieldrunners (the most generic and unoriginal TD game ever made in recent times? the sequel's WIT on RPS is equally unimpressive) on a tablet.

Thoughts about The Witcher: they should've added a "jump to destination" button like LA Noire has (or even better a clickable map of the quarters). I'd like to see it remade/demade as a PnC adventure. 30 hours in and I'm only at Chapter 3, maybe I should've played on Easy.

I've already had a grumble in the Bundle thread - but whilst there's much to like about Hinterland, it's an unpolished and shabby game for the most part isn't it?

Even if you ignore their decision not to bother with any sort of tutorial - there's the horrible camera angle you can't change which makes the world feel claustrophobic and the game itself is unbalanced and random and horrible.

I've played 2 'short' games which ended in stalemate because there was no way I could 'level up' enough to defeat the enemy bases and NOTHING ELSE LEFT TO DO.

Add the Kings demands are which clearly random and nonsensical (and frequently impossible - esp early in the game leaving you with no way to progress) - it's a real shame.

I'm not really sure how you can have a whole studio and 'finish' a game in that way - there are 1/2 man teams who produce a more polished and complete product. It's 5 years old too - you'd think they'd maybe have, I dunno, fixed it in the meanwhile!?

Glad I played it - some nice ideas - but overall it's just a sloppy underachiever...

Are there any other games like this - apart from Majesty - the 'semi hands off' and 'not too much micromanagement' school of RPG/People management??

I suggest getting the "we have ways" bonus as soon as you could with satalites so autopsies and interrogations are done instantly. Better when you have a foundry in your base. Also, get plasmas as fast as you can

Would you reccomend starting off in South America then? Or just satellite spamming there first?

I feel like it's usually best to start off in a continent with four territories, because it's easier to lose one if you don't and cut yourself off from the bonus. You don't need the autopsy bonuses for a while anyway.

Would you reccomend starting off in South America then? Or just satellite spamming there first?

Neither.

When you have full satellite coverage of a continent, abductions no longer happen there. That means abductions will happen somewhere else, likely multiple large continents you don't have coverage of. Every abduction you fail to respond to raises hysteria continent-wide, so when you have abductions happening in North America, Europe and Asia at the same time - as will most likely be the case if you focus on South America first - you are fucked, and are practically guaranteeing that you will lose at least one country in a large continent.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

Interesting. When I beat the game on classic, I found it easier once I started to 'give' up on a few countries/continents, and focus on maintaining the ones I could save. I think I lost four or five. But then once I was past the early-mid game found it (relatively) straightforward.

Obviously on Ironman I'm finding it tougher due to the possibility of a squad wipe (or three) or a terror mission failure ruining my day.

To be honest you don't need to worry too much about losing a country or two---all they're going to do is stop you getting that continent's bonus, and the only continent I'd be distressed to lose would be Africa. I can only see you losing to country-loss if you're getting repeatedly slaughtered in battles, and if that is happening then the strategic layer no longer has a chance to save you anyway.

It turns out that the game is actually ludicrously easy on classic with the Random Stats and Marathon second wave options enabled, unfortunately, so my time in that campaign has been pretty much wasted because there is really no conceivable way that I can lose now.